Tony Trounces A Training Townsend

State Senator Tony DeLuca is “Making special interests play by the same rules as our hardworking families.

When you think of Tony DeLuca, the first thing that comes to your mind of course is that you automatically think of someone holding special interests accountable.

Accountability…. It means different things to different people. To Tony DeLuca, it has always meant playing by the same rules as our hard working families…..

For example, Tony has been the open government leader in the Delaware General Assembly. demonstrated by bringing up reform bill after reform bill to be voted upon by the senate. State Senator Tony DeLuca is making our government more transparent and damn it, .. he is also making special interests more accountable.

Because of Tony DeLuca, and only because of Tony DeLuca and his single handed effort with both hands behind his back, the legislative process is open now, for the very first time, to citizens…. Tony DeLuca modernized state government with information available on the Internet; and now, because of Tony DeLuca, all lobbyists are required to let the public know within five days who they represent and who they are lobbying for on each and every bill.

After all, Tony DeLuca…. He’s one of US…..

Tony’s commitment to accountability is clear. Check the facts:

1)SB212, 6/13/12; SB235, 6/12/12; SB50,4/12/11, HB5, 4/7/11; HB 1 16/2/09.
2) SB185, 5/2/12 “Governor, lawmakers, intorduce lobby reform bill ” Dover Post 3/29/12

SB 165 Supported by Common Cause.

Delaware should consider itself lucky to have as fine a man in the Delaware State Senate, as it has in Tony DeLuca.

California Beats Delaware: Again

First it was Donald Trump’s amateur fillies… now it’s the professionals… Delaware has lost twice to California…

In the Ms USA pagent, Delaware’s own Katie Hanson, lost to Ms California who naturally, took the crown… When it came to Thoroughbreds, Delaware did a little better……

Delaware’s Havre De Grace, took the lead and California’s blind luck, just came up in time for the wire.

Even when he drew even with Havre de Grace, Gomez said he was unsure Blind Luck was going to get past her.

“We came up to her and she fought back,” her rider, Gomez said. “I thought I might be in a little trouble. But with this filly, as soon as you pull her out and she pins her ears back, she accelerates in two jumps.”

It was all the horse…..
“My horse dragged me to the front, and turning for home she gave me all she had and really kept on digging,” said Dominguez, who was the dominant rider at Delaware Park when he rode there from 2003-2008. “It was just a head bob and the other filly got up just in time.”

The final time of 2:01.28 was the fastest running of the Del Cap since Unbridled Belle’s 2:01.16 in 2006.

It may seem unfair that “great big ole California” beats out the state with the fewest number of counties (only 3) … but, if you compare populations, the simple fact that quite often Delaware and California are pitted neck to neck just before the final wire, it is fair to say that with California’s population of 37,253,956 versus Delaware’s of 897,934 it takes roughly 41.49 Californians, to match up to and equal one Delawarean….. 🙂

We may be small, but we ARE tough!

Media is Up Obama’s Ass

Sorry for the headline… I wasn’t going to publish anything today but the strange juxtaposition of two national media events has pissed me off…

Of course the media can do what it wants.. But then, heh, heh, so can I… And between myself and the media, the media will get the worst of it.

The two events are the Daschle appointment tax controversy, and the Obama bashing of my idol Jessica Simpson for being fat (not phat). Their coverage pissed me off..

CNN is running with the headline: Obama Taking a Dig at Jessica Simpson! It’s lead off states: Did Barack Obama take a dig at pop star Jessica Simpson?

Later buried in the story we find that on Matt Lauer’s today show, that the “much ado about nothing”story was only about a transcript error which had “inexplicably” occurred.

Obama was supposed to have snidely said of Jessica Simpson:

“Yeah, who’s losing a weight battle apparently,” “Yeah. Oh, well.”

When actually he matter of factly read the headline out loud:

““She’s in a ‘weight battle,’ apparently” — and did not say that Simpson was “losing” that fight.

After one gets to the bottom of the controversy the only news is that a transcript was doctored by NBC. The Headline should have read:

NBC Lies To Make Obama “Dis” Jessica Simpson

Why is this important? Every Philadelphia Eagles fan will tell you…. We owe Jessica Simpson, big time….” Dissing her, brings payback.

So what’s up with the Daschle story? I was reading a Liberal blogger who recently was arguing for a new candidate, and thought to myself, has that blogger lost his mind? One expected with the Obama win, that the issue of Health Care would finally be addressed. The only person capable of moving Health Care through the Senate… is Tom Daschle. If you don’t get Daschle, you don’t get single payer Health Care… I’m afraid that’s a political reality that many newbe Liberals are unaware of.

So what is headlined is $148,000 in back taxes. But as we read deeper we find that it is not over cash owed, not over a miss-filing, not over criminal wrong doing, or anything else malicious… Instead if is over a gray area of a little help from a friend… Imagine, and I think back on my younger days, of standing in the cold waiting for the bus, and someone on the job site, says “where do you live? I’ll pick you up…” and I ask…” are you sure? I don’t have any money to repay you”… and they say ” don’t worry about it… I have to spend the same money anyway”… and I say “ok” and then actually get used to it and come to depend on it… Woe and behold if I ever had to claim that cost as income on my tax forms… The thought would never occur to me, really, but if we are going to hold Daschle accountable, then what I was doing was cheating my government out of income as well..

So how do I account for it? Since we shared a ride… do I pay half? Or am I responsible only for the amount of bus fare I saved because of the free, or what I thought was a free ride given to me? Am I guilty of receiving income per mile that I traveled, and if it is per mile, do I use the mileage allowance costed out for that year of my youth, or today’s cost, because I’m paying back taxes in this year….? Am I deserving of penalties and interest because I did not even think of this favor as income? So how much do I owe?

Worried about the impropriety of all of this which transpired years ago, I asked my tax lawyer what could be done… His advice was “Forget about it”. No one cares… But when I insisted and said that my records would be scrutinized for any issue real or imagined, he shrugged his shoulders and said..” If you are that much worried about it, calculate the highest cost possible, count it as income, calculate the penalties and interest as if it were unreported income, and cut a check… But if you ask me, your wasting time and money on nothing… No one cares.”

Now the argument being made by those extremely frightened that single payer health care might go through, is that because Daschle was a former Senator, he should have known he was in violation, if not at least that he was involved in impropriety. But, as did I go around and around with my accountant, I’m sure that Daschle also had expert advice when it came time to fill out his 1040… Seriously, I would doubt that he actually stayed up all night with receipts and double stick tape, running through two rolls of calculator paper… Most likely he had an expert compile the tax for him… At his salary level, he most likely had a “top” expert compile his tax for him… That “top” expert would know exactly what was legal and what was not…

Legally Daschle is only entitled to report income… The cost of the service was free to the person giving it.. A limousine service costs the same whether a car sits idle, or it doesn’t. The chauffeur, car payments, repairs, and even the differential of gas used, cost the same whether hired out or not. Like dogs, the cars have to be run when idle to keep them in top condition.. So how much did Daschle benefit?

Although what he did was legal, and he had the best legal authorities advising him, and no doubt you yourself are guilty of getting a ride from someone and not recording it as income… in order to see that single payer Health Care sails through Congress he plunked down $148,000 dollars to put it behind him.. He also apologized.

(My guess is that Bill Richardson couldn’t come up with the cash…..)

So my squeamish Liberal friends are showing they, like they have been portrayed by Republicans these past 8 years, really do not have backbone and really do not want single payer Health Care to sail through Congress…..

If I’m wrong (you know I am), they had better get their asses in gear and get on the horn and muscle up the outrage…. Outrage that someone who tries hard to be honest, is not given his opportunity to make his case forthright.. Every American citizen is given his right to a trial where he can meet his accusers face to face and refute their accusations… Unless of course he lives in America and has to deal with our main stream media…

It matters not whether you are a Republican or Democrat… Our four networks and lead newspapers all suck… Thank heavens for the foreign press… That’s who I read and whose advertised products I buy… (Their ads are actually entertaining compared tho the tripe we are fed over here.)

( I will finish with this story… So mad was I today (yeah, Tony, Jessica affects me too), that I wasted an hour on the comment lines of each network and main newspapers with a diatribe degrading American news and promoting foreign reporting… I then left these links so viewers could see what real news looked like…) None were published (I expected that)…but the point was taken by their gate-keepers I am sure… Perhaps you could help clean up America where it needs it most and follow suit with some of these below?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/default.stm

http://www.reuters.com/finance

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business.html

http://www.smh.com.au/

And if you are bilingual…..

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/sequence/0,2-3234,1-0,0.html

Perhaps you could do the same? All I asking is that like our foreign press corps, that America’s media just stick to facts and leave their unrefuted opinions and spin to be sorted out by the experts: us.

If enough people follow suit, decrying local coverage and praising the foreign press right there on their pages, together we might give our main stream media the collective enema they have so long deserved….. At least we can all conclude that they need more fiber.

Why One Does Not Bet On the Cowboys

Courtesy of ESPN

While doing research on this weekend’s games in order to show up Hube, I came across this file tape in Dallas Cowboy archives. I realized there was no way Dallas’s quarterback could concentrate hard enough in the final minutes to pull it off this Sunday. I went with the Giants.

At least Romo will have a good weekend.

To paraphrase TO: “its not fair….it’s….not….fair…”

Don’t expect to see Campbell’s, Lipton, Progresso, or any other soup company in line to offer Dallas’s quarterback a lucrative advertising contract. Why?

Romo always chokes in the Bowl.